6 episodes
Aired between 27th April 1968 and 1st June 1968
Written by David Whitaker
Produced by Peter Bryant
Directed by Tristan De Vere Cole
Synopsis
The TARDIS lands, but the scanner is having trouble picking up anything other than the fact that it is surrounded by metal. After a moment, the scanner begins to show images of flamingos, a sunny beach and other pretty things. The Doctor works out that this is a TARDIS defense mechanism and wants them to fly off as there's obviously some great danger awaiting them. However, before they can leave, the fluid link drains and causes and overload.
The Doctor grabs a device called the time vector generator and forces Jamie out of the TARDIS, following shortly after.
He explains to Jamie that he had to remove the generator before the ship gets too out of hand and blew up. With the generator removed, the TARDIS' insides have reverted to the same spacial dimensions as the inside of a Police Box in the real world. They are stuck until they can find more mercury to repair the fluid link.
After looking around their immediate surroundings, Jamie and the Doctor find themselves inside a drifting spaceship. The Doctor finds an oil trail running across the floor, to disappear under one of the closed doors. They explore further finding the trail leads inside the ships control room, which is locked. They soon figure out that the ship is a small cargo freighter, built for a crew of four, but no one is on board, the ship is drifting without power, and annoyingly enough, there is no mercury on board unless it's in the control room.
The Doctor and Jamie decide to take their time, having some dinner from the food replication module and Jamie even uses one of the bunks to have a quick nap.
Inside the control room, a small robot activates and begins making its way through the corridors. It soon finds the TARDIS, and seals the door leading away from it. It then returns unnoticed to the control room unnoticed.
Once inside the control room, it starts the ship again, throwing the Doctor off balance and causing him to hit his head. Jamie is roused and rushes to the Doctor who is dazed. He says that they need to get back to the TARDIS. When they go, they find the door sealed. Jamie takes the Doctor back to the living quarters and puts him on the bed. The Doctor implores him to lock the door, shortly before he passes out.
Alone, Jamie looks out of the porthole and sees a large silver ship in the distance.
He's too busy looking at it to see the Doctor get up in a daze and leave the room, using energy in the time vector generator to cut through the door to the TARDIS. As he is doing so, he comes face to face with the robot. It approaches the Doctor menacingly until Jamie throws a blanket over it and hauls the Doctor back into the living quarters, locking themselves in.
The robot frees itself of the blanket and comes after them, cutting its way through the door. The Doctor instructs Jamie on how to release the energy within the time vector generator and use it like a gun.
Jamie points the device at the door and shoots through it, destroying the robot.
The Doctor passes out again.
The silver ship in the distance turns out to be a space station. The crew on board pick up the signal from the small freighter and determine that it's 90 million miles off course. When they don't get a response from hailing the ship, the base controller - Jarvis - determines its a threat and orders it destroyed.
Unknown to the space station or the TARDIS crew, strange white orbs float from the hold of the tiny freighter and disappear through the space stations hold.
Dr Gemma Corwyn, second in command, tries to convince Jarvis to reconsider as she feels there could be survivors on the ship. Jarvis is adamant that the ship will be destroyed.
Looking for help, Jamie uses his ingenuity and uses the time vector generator to send a signal across to the wheel in space by flashing its light through the porthole at the ship.
Unkown to Jamie, the generator creates static across the comms. channel which is picked up and nearly bursts the crews ear drums! With this evidence, Jarvis relents and agrees to send across some men to investigate.
Two of the crew suit up and go across, bringing Jamie and the Doctor back. As they are being checked over, Comms Officer Leo Ryan begins chatting up Astronomer Tanya Lernov. As they are talking, they get reports of strange magnetic anomalies on the wheel. Tanya puts these together with the slight dips in air pressure recently and begins to suspect they may be related to the freighter.
Gemma checks over Jamie and the Doctor. She fears that the latter may have concussion and perhaps a small fracture, but Jamie seems alright. She asks for their names and other details, which forces Jamie to supply the false name of John Smith for the Doctor, based on a name he sees on the medical equipment.
He lies to her and says he doesn't know what went off in the ship because he fell ill, and the Doctor was left to look after him, adding that up to now, the Doctor hasn't told him what happened to the rest of the crew. Gemma gives Jamie a glass of water, but he doesn't drink it, he's more interested in taking a tour of the wheel. Gemma sends him to their Librarian - Zoe. When Jamie leaves, Gemma gives Zoe a heads up and suggests she keeps an eye on Jamie.
Jamie finds Zoe and soon discovers that she is a walking talking database.
She has an eidetic memory, and is full of information on astrophysics and other disciplines. The downside to this is that she's got no real empathy with others, and openly laughs at Jamie wearing a kilt until he gives her enough information to reference it. With pleasantries out of the way, Zoe begins the tour.
Their first stop is to see Bill Duggan, one of the crew that is studying flowers collected from Venus. The next stop is to show him the X-Ray laser, the wheels main defence against invaders and environmental threats.
Whilst Jamie is out on the tour, Gemma contacts Jarvis and lets him know Jamie lied. She knows he lied about the names, and his blood test confirms that he hasn't been ill, or in space for long. She also points out that he wasted the water, one of the most precious commodities in outer space. This all leads to Jarvis deciding that Jamie and the Doctor are saboteurs. He rushes off to resume the order to blow up the ship.
Zoe continues the tour with Jamie, explaining the wheel's multi functional purpose of relay station, research centre, and early warning system for Earth. On their way round, news of Jarvis' orders reach them, and whilst the crew are all getting ready, Jamie manages to slip away.
Jarvis reaches the control deck and finds Zoe, but realises that he's too late to catch Jamie. He and Bill Duggan rush off to the power room, leaving everyone else to speculate about what's happening.
Meanwhile, the odd looking orbs begin to glow and form something inside of them. The shell breaks and a mechanical hand appears...the hand of a cyberman!
Jamie finds his way back to the power room and uses a bottle of quick setting plastic to gunk up the workings of the X-Ray laser. He's soon found by Duggan and Jarvis, who hold him and call for security.
In the control room, Zoe looks over the instruments and accurately predicts that a star in a nearby system is about to go nova. When this occurs, it's likely to cause a localised meteor shower.
The Cybermen hatch out of their eggs on board the freighter, and communicate with a strange electronic overlord. They inform their "controller" that they're on board and undetected.
Gemma informs Jarvis of the impending meteor shower, and makes it clear that they will need the X-Ray laser to get the wheel through it unscathed. This lends more credence to Jamie and the Doctor being saboteurs.
They all go back to the control room, leaving Duggan to check over the machinery. As he does so, he notices a small metallic slug like creature, that he mistakes for some kind of unusual space pet.
He puts it in a cupboard until he has time to examine it better.
In the control room, Jamie is interrogated, but refuses to be called a saboteur (even though he is).
He puts the blame on the Doctor, saying he told him to. Jamie is impounded in the infirmary with the Doctor.
When the Doctor regains consciousness, he rants at Jamie for putting them in this situation, but understands that he had to do it to stop the TARDIS from being destroyed (may not be invincible without the time vector generator). As it turns out, he barely remembers anything else from the freighter.
Meanwhile, in the control room, Zoe works with Leo to confirm the calculations on the star. He gets cross with her for being so cold and analytical, which upsets her when she realises that it's true, she has very little empathy.
Bill Duggan continues to try and fix the laser, but soon discovers that his newly found pet has gone and eaten all the Bernalium rods, the very thing that fuels the X-Ray laser.
Now he is conscious, Gemma checks over the Doctor. She begins cross-referencing Jamie's answers to her questions but is interrupted by the arrival of Zoe. She has turned up because she's done more calculations and worked out that the freighter didn't have enough fuel to get where they are now, from where it was registered to set off. In addition, it couldn't have possibly drifted that far off course in that short space of time. The Doctor tries to act nonchalant and defy her logic by saying its wrong, but yet cannot come up with an explanation.
Bill Duggan goes to contact Gemma and fill her in on the loss of the Bernalium. He leaves one of his crew in there to clean up. The crewman is attacked by a host of the silver slugs, but before he dies, manages to cover one of them in quick setting plastic.
Once it's discovered, Zoe arranges to bring the creature to the Doctor for analysis. They set up an X-Ray machine to see inside the plastic (because it hardens like steel and cannot be easily cut through). They discover that the creature is a Cybermat, and therefore the Cybermen are clearly involved.
Jarvis finds out about the laser and does his nut. He replaces Duggan with Leo, and puts Tanya on Leo's duties. Gemma concurs with Jarvis that all the mishaps of late seem to be related to the freighter, and convinces him to once again, send people over there and inspect the ship.
Two of the crew go back over there, and are immediately set upon by the Cybermen. They are mind controlled and ordered to take the Cybermen back to the Wheel in space.
The metal monsters get inside a crate with a false bottom and hide, whilst the mind controlled humans fill the crate with spare Bernalium found on board the freighter.
The Doctor is permitted to speak to Jarvis and Gemma, to whom he tries to explain the threat of the Cybermen. Jarvis refuses to listen, stating that they'll never get to the wheel undetected.
The crewmen bring back the Bernalium and are welcomed with open arms.
Gemma gets Duggan to take a look at the X Ray picture and confirms that the Cybermat is what he saw. The Doctor begins putting the pieces of the puzzle together, speculating that the Cybermen wanted the Bernalium gone, but can't think why.
As the day progresses, the Doctor begins to question Jarvis' sanity, seeing as he refuses to believe anything outside of things working perfectly, and Gemma takes his point, especially when Jarvis announces that the Doctor and Jamie are to be trusted and given the run of the ship, and everything is perfectly fine now.
A while later, one of the crewmen goes to the hold to pick up the newly arrived Bernalium. he is confronted and killed by a Cyberman and dumped in the incinerator, before the mind controlled humans pick up the fuel and make their way into the wheel.
Tanya picks up on the fact that the incinerator has activated, but Leo tells her to just log it as another anomaly.
The mind controlled humans take the Bernalium to the X-Ray laser and with the help of the Cybermen, mind zap Bill Duggan. They begin fixing the laser themselves, whilst ordering Bill to go to the control room.
Zoe approaches Gemma and says that she told Jarvis of a miscalculation in the meteor swarm, but Jarvis told her to ignore it and that everything is fine. Whilst she's there, she takes the opportunity to raise her issues around the lack of empathy she has, but Gemma assures her that it's just a byproduct of her training in the "city" - a parapsychology research centre where she was raised.
Now he has the freedom to move about the ship, the Doctor soon finds out about the Bernalium brought over. He quickly works out that the Cybermen must have come over in the crate and have likely brainwashed some of the crew. He confronts Gemma with this, but she assures him that all the crew take specific drugs to combat the potential of mind control. The Doctor assures her that the Cybermen's powers will be far in excess of that. As a backup, they have a device called the solinski circuit that can monitor thought waves for mind control. They use the scanner in the control room and discover as Bill Duggan enters the room, that he is controlled. Duggan smashes the communications hub and is killed by electrocution.
The Doctor advises them to create a crude device that they can all attach to the back of their necks to interfere with the mind control signals, and sets Leo and Tanya off with creating them. Zoe asks if she can help, but they refuse to let her.
As they prepare the circuits, the Doctor and Jamie go off to the hold to find the crate of Bernalium. They're investigating it, when they hear the metallic clump of feet against the stairs. They hide just in time to see the Cyberman pick up some of the Bernalium and take it back upstairs. This makes the Doctor ponder the Cybermen's intent, as they now clearly don't want to destroy the wheel. He reckons they'll just kill the crew instead by corrupting the air. They contact the control room and get them to close off all the air locks, but are soon confronted by a pair of Cybermats. The Doctor instructs Tanya and Gemma to quickly set up a frequency to broadcast into the room, burning the small robots brains. The Doctor holds the destroyed Cybermat up as proof of the threat they now face.
The Cybermen contact their controller and inform it of the death of the Cybermats. The controller decides that now is the time to take over the wheel.
The Doctor returns with the broken Cybermat and gives it to Gemma who confronts Jarvis with it. Jarvis is almost catatonic now and has clearly had a nervous breakdown.
He still refuses to believe in it, putting Gemma in a position where she has to take control of the wheel. She orders a magnetic force field to be placed around the control room to protect them, but doesn't know what else she can do.
Everyone feels helpless, and Zoe confides in Jamie that she regrets not being able to sympathise. In his own patronising way, he consoles her.
In the laser room, an Irish engineer called Flannigan turns up and sees the mind controlled humans working on the laser. A call comes in from Leo but they ignore it. When Flannigan goes to answer it, one of the men pulls a gun out on him. They end up fighting and one of the controlled crew is shot before Flannigan is subdued and mind controlled. The Cybermen question Falnnigan about the nature of the force field, but discover it can only be deactivated from inside the control room.
In the control room, Leo panics as they discover that the meteor shower is much bigger than anticipated. He suddenly gets an incoming call from the laser room. It's Flannigan. He tells Leo that the laser is finally ready and they haven't been in touch because of a technical fault.
Hearing all this, the pieces fall into place for the Doctor. He explains that the Cybermen blew up the star to force the wheel to use the X-Ray laser, but they ensured that the Bernalium was destroyed so that the humans would have to go to the freighter and therefore bring the Cybermen on board. From there, they can invade Earth.
The Doctor looks around and asks Jamie where he put the time vector generator, but Jamie explains that he gave it back to the Doctor. They soon realise that it must have fallen out of his pocket back on the freighter. He chastises Jamie and tells him it's vital to defeating the Cybermen, going so far as to making him return to the freighter and getting it. Gemma and Zoe volunteer to help Jamie get back to the freighter and head off. Jamie doesn't particularly like risking their lives, but he's convinced there's no other choice.
When Leo finds out Gemma and Zoe have gone with Jamie, he shouts at the Doctor, explaining that they will be destroyed by the radiation from the laser, or smashed to pieces by the meteor debris. The Doctor is really apologetic, but says it's vital they get the device back, stopping short of explaining why and where it's from.
Zoe and Jamie suit up, heading out into space whilst Gemma operates the air lock. Once they're both clear, Gemma hears footsteps and hides. She watches as a Cyberman and one of the controlled crew enter. They discuss their plan to turn all the air to ozone and kill the crew.
She contacts the control room and tells the Doctor about the plan she overheard. She's discovered doing it and is killed by one of the Cybermen as the Doctor watches helpless to do anything.
Out in space, Jamie and Zoe near the freighter, but soon see the meteors hurtling towards them.
On board the wheel, Leo coordinates the attack to destroy the meteors, using the X-Ray laser. Luckily, Zoe and Jamie make it to the ship through a cloud of debris and dust.
Leo is shocked when he finds out that Gemma is dead and is more perplexed when the Doctor informs him that a Cyberman control spacecraft has just been spotted on the scanners. They switch over to the emergency (not sexual) air supply, and thwart the Cybermen's plans to suffocate them all.
Jarvis overhears all of this and finally accepts what's going on. He wanders off, lifting the magnetic shield from the control room and roams the corridors, looking to take out as many Cybermen as he can. Leo contacts him over the comms. but he refuses to come back, and is quickly strangulated by one of the Cybermen.
Jamie and Zoe find the time vector generator, and manage to home in on the Cyberman communications signal, relaying their intent to find and stop the Doctor who they've identified as a previous threat.
Flannigan contacts Leo and says that he's in the laser room, being attacked by Cybermen. He's sealed the doors but doesn't know how much longer he can hold out. The Doctor says he'll go and help him and arranges to meet him by one of the air lock doors. As soon as the video link is broken, he tells Leo it's a trap and comes up with another plan.
As soon as Zoe and Jamie arrive back on the wheel, they are confronted by a mind controlled Flannigan. He is overpowered by Leo and they attach one of the small scramblers to the back of his neck, bringing Flannigan back to the good guys side.
The Doctor meanwhile takes the time vector generator from Jamie and goes through the air vents to the laser room and fixes the device to the X-Ray laser, boosting the power, pocketing some mercury he finds on the way. He jury rigs an electrical field together, and when the Cybermen attack him, they are fried in the process.
Now the Cyber control ship is in range, a horde of Cybermen flap their way through space towards the wheel.
With the boosted power in place, Leo directs the laser to the ship and blows it up. They remaining crew then shortly fix scramblers to the controlled humans, and destroy the Cybermen by spraying quick setting plastic on them, or repelling them into space with the main force field.
With the threat ended, the Doctor says his goodbye's and goes back to the freighter. Zoe asks Jamie to come with them as she doesn't fit in on the wheel, but Jamie tells her to stick it out. She disobeys him and stows away.
Once inside the TARDIS, the Doctor repairs the fluid link and prepares to leave, spying Zoe hiding in a chest just in time.
He gets her out of the box and asks her if she's really certain that she wants to go with them. She says she is certain.
To make doubly sure, the Doctor goes to one of the roundels on the wall and picks out a headset. He puts it on and projects a mental image onto the scanner screen, asking Zoe if she's ever heard of the Daleks.
He proceeds to remember one of his earlier adventures and show Zoe the potential dangers of travelling with him.
She eagerly watches the screen.
Trivia
- One of the prevailing myth's of this story is that the Director came in vastly over budget for this story. In actual fact, he came in under budget, but didn't come back again because he didn't agree with Peter Bryant always being on-set interfering with the production.
- The incidental music was provided by the Radiophonic workshop as they didn't want to bother paying for music.
- The scene at the end was put in to tie in a repeat of the Evil of the Daleks to be shown the following week.
What worked
- The sounds accompanying the Cybermen are pretty good, but will drive you insane by the end of the story.
- The spheres sliding through a ship are pretty excellent, and the sound effect is even better.
- For early Cybermen, they look pretty good, having gotten rid of the old school balls on their joints and changing into diving suits
- The callousness of the Cybermen and their willingness to brutally murder adds a lot of tension
What didn't work
- When will the Doctor learn to carry spare mercury inside that TARDIS of his?
- So the TARDIS has warned them of great danger, and they decide to lark about eating Sunday dinner and having 40 winks!
- All that medical examination by Gemma and she never once sees that the Doctor has got two hearts, or anything else unusual about him
- Why take a highly suspicious Scotsman on a tour of the base, and show him exactly where your defences are?
- The scene where Bill Duggan thinks the Cybermat is a pet and puts it in a cupboard
- We get yet another base commander who tries to get the best out of his crew by ranting, raving and disbelieving anything and everything that they say.
- Best line fluff ever - "switch to the sexual air supply"
- The Doctor shows Zoe a scene that he was never in - how did he know it even happened?
Overall Feelings
Ok so, you don't need me to mention the frankly bonkers plot is an issue. It's obvious that David Whitaker made it complicated, so everyone would stand back and go "whoa that was so complicated, therefore great". The point that he missed though is that the Doctor even says in the episode that without the time vector generator hooked up to the laser, they stand no chance of blowing up the cyber ship and winning, That's on top of the fact that they have enough quck setting plastic to kill two Cybermen at the most. Why not just go with plan A and storm the wheel? Well, either that, or if they have enough power to blow up a sun, why not hold the world to ransom, or even better, why do they need the Earth at all?
Despite all the sillyness, some reviews I've read claim that the Wheel in Space is better than the Moonbase because it's improved on it, demonstrating that the scenes we don't get to see used the Cyber threat much more effectively. When you consider their approach here to walking into an infirmary and eeny-meany-miny-mo-ing which crew member to take, then yes, it is better, but I think that overall, this is just as bad.
Not that I need to try hard to justify this, but...
The TARDIS screen showing happy pictures aside, we initially get a very promising start to the story, but it's quickly brushed aside to watch the Doctor and Jamie eat Sunday dinner and nap. We then get a full episode of walking round a station, sabotaging equipment and saying you didn't, and telling obvious lies. Next, we get bonkers plots and commanders going round the twist whilst the handsome people talk about noses and flirt with each other. None of this is particularly surpassed by greatness shown in the Moonbase; but the difference here is that the Moonbase had japes in it from start to finish. This was played serious and it is to the shows detriment.
The only scene (I think) where this works is the Doctor's reaction to Gemma dying. There could have been some good moments with Zoe despairing at her lack of empathy, but they're ruined by Jamie patronising her. On the up side, at least there wasn't much in terms of making plans only to abandon them like we've had in the last few stories.
Rating
5 out of 10
Just as bonkers as the Moonbase, but without the comedy to make it bearable
Rewatchability Factor
4 out of 10
If the Fury from the Deep is to be watched mainly for Victoria leaving, then there's little to entertain you in this story beyond watching it to see Zoe come aboard.
Watch this if you liked...
Consulting the Matrix
Which is your favourite Cyberman voice?
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